An age old flood control tool is the sandbag. Sandbags are typically stacked in layers to divert water to an area where the water will not cause property damage. Even though the bag is porous, the sand filler is dense enough to prevent water flow through the bag. The sand also adds weight so that floodwater will not normally move the sandbag.
One problem with using sandbags is that the bags must be filled, carried and stacked. The sandbags are heavy. Preparing a sandbag dike is labor intensive and possibly backbreaking work. In cases where manpower is limited and flash floods are possible, there may not be enough time to fill, move and stack sandbags to prevent property damage. A portable dike is desired which can be rapidly constructed and positioned with minimum manpower.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,373 to Coffey discloses a fluid-filled dike having a frame with a plurality of legs. Fluid, such as water, is often readily available at a flood site. Using the water to fill a container eliminates the need for sand. One drawback, however, of the Coffey invention is that the dike is difficult to assemble. The legs must be assembled, adjusted and affixed to the ground.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,919 to Hendrix discloses a water-filled dike partition. The partition has a triangular cross-section. The partition walls include triangular gussets, which are rigid enough to maintain the triangular cross-section. Legs are not needed. A gusseted dike partition, however, may be undesirably bulky to hand carry. Accordingly, possible drawbacks of the Hendrix invention are excessive weight and lack of portability.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,392 to Taylor discloses a multi-partition water-filled dike. The partitions are cylindrical shaped and interconnected along a horizontal mid-plane by a sheet of high-strength material. Water fills the cylindrical partitions to maintain the cylindrical partition shape. The partitions are stacked to form a dike. One benefit of the Taylor invention is that the partitions are relatively easy to individually fill. One drawback is that for each partition length, at least two partitions must be filled with water. This takes twice the effort as filling a single partition.
Water and sand take time to fill dike partitions and sandbags, respectively. Accordingly, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,164,870 to Baruh, which is incorporated herein in its entirety, a dike was disclosed which was a quick and more efficient way of providing a portable dike, which is also is lightweight. It would be desirable for the portable dike not only to serve as a portable dike, however, it extreme cases, it would be desirable for the portable dike to be converted into a floatation device.